{"id":1519,"date":"2026-03-31T11:20:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T18:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alessandrob.com\/blog\/?p=1519"},"modified":"2026-03-31T11:23:44","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T18:23:44","slug":"joyces-ulysses-artificial-intelligence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alessandrob.com\/blog\/?p=1519","title":{"rendered":"Joyce’s Ulysses & Artificial Intelligence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nabokov thought fine literature should tickle your palate and tingle your nerves (paraphrasing a bit) but the concept is true. Fine literature should seep in through your skin, lodge in your every cell, and do unmentionable things to your limbic system. When I read Ulysses at 15, the scene where Leopold Bloom, the cuckold husband, takes \u201ctwo letters and a card\u201d up to Molly, his wife, made such an impression on me that I could not stop re-reading the passage.<\/p>\n

The next day I joined the other freshmen of my all-boys Catholic purgatory, dressed in grays and blues, ties askew, and lamented, as everyone did, how fecking<\/i> boring this Joyce dude was, as I could not wait to get back and re-read the passage, thinking there must be something wrong with me. Words should not have this effect.<\/p>\n

You see, in my 15-year-old mind I was Molly\u2019s lover and her husband Leopold was carrying my letter to her, and finding her wife sitting\u2014delightful and shapely\u2014as she puts my<\/i> letter under her pillow. \"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

AI could get that? Appreciate the immensity of that simple gesture? Imagine the painting of the nymph over Molly\u2019s bed, envision the possibilities, and dream up the rest? Could AI\u2014in another scene\u2014\u201cget\u201d Bloom bending down with his hands on his knees, as he wonders what he looks like to the cat?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I can hear the cat going Meow cookoo cucko…<\/p>\n

Featured Art: Mixed Media. Watercolor, pencil, and ink. DP.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nabokov thought fine literature should tickle your palate and tingle your nerves (paraphrasing a bit) but the concept is true. Fine literature should seep in through your skin, lodge in your every cell, and do unmentionable things to your limbic system. When I read Ulysses …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1520,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alessandrob.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alessandrob.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alessandrob.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alessandrob.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alessandrob.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1519"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/alessandrob.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1522,"href":"https:\/\/alessandrob.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1519\/revisions\/1522"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alessandrob.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alessandrob.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alessandrob.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alessandrob.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}